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Psalm 65:(1-8), 9-13
Proper 10A
Even after a couple decades writing sermon commentaries on Revised Common Lectionary texts, it remains a mystery to me just what it means when they place some verses inside parentheses. And in the case of Psalm 65 that means just over half of the psalm is so designated. In any event there is very little…
Genesis 25:19-34
Proper 10A
Commentator’s Note: The genius of the latter half of Genesis is the way it tells stories of fascinating characters — interesting to us not primarily because they are foreign or strange but precisely because we see our own families, stories, dramas, traumas and redemptions on display. What I’ve created here is a narrative, created under…
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Proper 9A
Commentator’s Note: The genius of the latter half of Genesis is the way it tells stories of fascinating characters — interesting to us not primarily because they are foreign or strange but precisely because we see our own families, stories, dramas, traumas and redemptions on display. Over the next two weeks, I’ve written a narrative,…
Psalm 145:8-14
Proper 9A
Psalm 145 occurs twice in each of the Revised Common Lectionary’s Years of A, B, and C. But it’s never the whole psalm for some reason. This Year A reading carves out some of the middle of this song while other assigned lections in other years include the first verses, the last verses, the middle…
Genesis 22:1-14
Proper 8A
This is one of the simplest stories in the whole Bible. That may surprise you but it’s true. From the standpoint of Hebrew language — vocabulary, grammar, syntax, that sort of thing — this story is remarkably straight-forward. In fact, for this reason, many beginning Hebrew students are assigned this text for their first translation…
Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18
Proper 8A
Across its somewhat sprawling 52 verses, Psalm 89 has a little bit of everything. We begin with the first 4 verses assigned by this Year A lection with vows to praise God across the generations (something we will read again next week in Psalm 145). Then there is a whole section on the splendors of…
Genesis 21:8-21
Proper 7A
Illustration: A while ago I heard a reporter, a Middle East correspondent with decades of experience in Palestine and Israel, being interviewed on the news. He was responding to push back from a listener who didn’t think he gave enough background in a recent news report. You could almost hear the wry smile in the…
Psalm 69:7-10, (11-15), 16-18
Proper 7A
The Year A Lectionary has carved out the precise center of Psalm 69, joining the psalm’s action after the first 6 verses that set the stage for a beleaguered psalmist crying for help and then stopping short of a string of verses that call down harsh judgment on the poet’s enemies before the song concludes…
Psalm 90:1-6,10, 12-17: Numbering Our Days – Day1 series: Faith and Science, part 7
“Teach us to number our days,” prays the psalmist, “that we may gain a wise heart.” But what does it mean “to number our days”? A good friend of mine has recently been reading the New York Times bestselling book called Being Mortal. The author of this book is a surgeon and a professor at…
Genesis 1:26-27: The Image of God and the Secret Life – Day1 series: Faith and Science, part 5
Last summer I was in Cambridge, England, for a conference. I had a free afternoon and I set out to find the Eagle Pub. The Eagle is just a short walk from the Old Cavendish Laboratory–the laboratory where some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in the 20th Century have taken place. Breakthroughs in physics, chemistry,…
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